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The goon factor





Saturday, June 28, 2003


Practitioners of activities which fall into the category of extreme sports,
we've noticed, have this evangelistic need to spread their form of recreation
and draw converts. We're not sure why.

Perhaps they look at all those who enjoy watching or playing the major sports
and truly feel those people should be hang-gliding or snowboarding.


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Or perhaps they're a little envious of the attention -- not to mention the
funding for public facilities -- that has been lavished on baseball, football,
basketball and the like.

So here was Tim Blumenthal, executive director of the International Mountain
Biking Association, trying to persuade borough Parks Commissioner Tom Paulo
that the time for an official mountain-biking trail on Staten Island was long
past due. His pitch, however, was different. His organization wants to build 15
kilometers of mountain biking trails in Wolfe's Pond Park for free. Parks
could charge mountain bikers an annual fee, and keep the money.

Mr. Blumenthal explained his Boulder, Colo.-based organization generous
proposal by saying, We're offering the service for free, because it is so badly
needed.

Eltingville biking enthusiast Matthew LeBow, who is the race director of the
New York Adventure Racing Association and a IMBA representative, accompanied
Mr. Blumenthal on his presentation in Mr. Paulo's office.

He previously put forth a larger plan to build a network of multi-use trails
for hiking, running, mountain-biking horse-riding and cross-country skiing
through Wolfe's Pond and Long Pond Park. That plan has already won support from
Community Board 3.

Mr. LeBow maintains that the part of Wolfe's Pond Park where the IMBA
proposes to build the trail is an environmental disaster area, now.

The IMBA offer is certainly worth considering, at least on its face. It's not
often that a private entity proposes to fund and build a revenue-generating
attraction in the parks and let the Parks Department keep the money.

But the Parks Department's ban on mountain biking in city parkland remains a
formidable hurdle. Commissioner Paulo would have to be won over and then be
able to persuade city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe to relax the ban for
Wolfe's Pond Park.

Neither looks likely now.

The stumbling block is how it would work. Mr. LeBow's comments about the
condition of the section of the park where the trail would be built hints at the
crux of the problem. That part of Wolfe's Pond Park is an environmental
disaster area precisely because of heavy, illegal use of all-terrain vehicles
there.
We can presume that other wheeled vehicles, perhaps even mountain bikes, are
ridden around in this section of the park as well.

If riders ATVs and other illegal vehicles can tear up the park with impunity,
to the point where they've made a mess of it, what would happen if actual
trails for mountain bikes were built there? Does the phrase Build it and they
will come mean anything? It won't be just the dues-paying mountain-bikers riding
that trail.

Posting 24-hour-a-day patrols on the site to insure that it's used only by
paid-up mountain-bikers, and only during permitted hours, would be a pretty
expensive undertaking.

So is maintaining the trail, which will inevitably be damaged by both legal
mountain-bike riders and whatever riders of illegal vehicles manage to sneak on
it.

Mr. Paulo said Responsible users are never the problem. He's right in so far
as they are not purposefully destructive and might even care about the park,
but mountain bikes do damage to natural areas, even on designated trails. Just
because a person is riding legally doesn't mean his wheels are not chewing up
the soil. The more bikers, the more damage, the more maintenance costs.

We're not sure if the prospective long-term costs of keeping the trail secure
and maintaining it would be offset by the fact that IMBA would build it
gratis.

The possibility that mountain-bikers careening over hills and around curves
would injure themselves, or someone else who happened to be in the area, must
also be considered by a city that already pays out far more than it should in
liability lawsuits.

The fact is that mountain-biking -- riding bicycles where bicycles usually
don't go --is an inherently dangerous sport, exciting and fun as it may be for
its enthusiasts. The idea that space should be set aside for it exclusively, in
a well-used city park and that there won't be serious accidents or an
invasion of illegal riders of mechanized vehicles, seems, to us, unrealistic.

We recall that in the early 1990s, someone had the bright idea that there
should be a Fitness Trail in Clove Lakes Park and the Parks Department built a
beautiful one with wooden devices meant to exercise various parts of the body
and refine certain skills. Within a month, it was in a shambles. Anyone with an
inkling of the degree to which city parks are misused, especially at night,
and the mentality of a certain percentage of park users, could have predicted as
much. Such naive initiatives are nice and may cheer some, perhaps, but
because of the goon factor among us, inevitably turn into foolish and costly
blunders.

The heavy ATV damage in Wolfe's Pond suggests to us that the goon factor is
at work there too. It must be taken into account.

With apologies to those who have a passion for this extreme sport, unless the
problems of policing it, securing it, protecting it and maintaining it can be
solved to everyone's satisfaction, we don't think mountain-biking and a New
York City park are a good fit, badly needed or not.





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